China's Guangdong to lift minimum wage by 19 pct -paper

BEIJING Jan 20 (Reuters) - China's Guangdong province will raise its minimum wage by an average 18.6 percent from March, local media said on Thursday, in a sign that Chinese labour costs may rise strongly again in 2011.

The wage rise will lift minimum salaries in Guangdong, China's export hub, by between 140 yuan ($21.27) and 200 yuan, China Business News said on Thursday.

The pay rise will also give Guangdong's capital city Guangzhou the highest minimum salary in China, of 1,300 yuan ($200) a month, the newspaper said.

After a decade of steady rises in minimum salaries across Chinese cities and provinces, wage increases accelerated last year as China's economic boom spread into the hinterland and fuelled competition for labour.

The city of Beijing, for instance, lifted the floor for wages by 200 yuan to 1,160 yuan ($175) a month from Jan. 1, following a 20 percent increase just six months earlier.

The Chinese government has repeatedly pledged to increase workers' share of national income as part of efforts to boost consumption.

Rising wages put pressure on China's inflation, already running at its highest in over two years, but that is compensated by even faster gains in productivity. (Reporting by Koh Gui Qing; Editing by Ken Wills)